Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

Roadside, flowers and a plastic cups.

The tide Goes out and the sun comes out End slivers through the blind Rain came down in the wild Jeanne Keckler, what kind of artist are you?

I’m a mixed media artist.

A lot of my history in learning art, I taught myself, I wanted to try everything, watercolor, oil pastels, and how to draw and paint everything.

So and then I just started to love how everything can mix together and bring out an interesting kind of puzzle.

Yes, so we’m gonna talk about you puzzles.

When did you first pick up your first, I guess, paintbrush?

When did this history begin in your life?

My mother really wanted all of us.

There were five children in our family.

She wanted wanted all of us to, you know, have exposure to arts.

And so I went to Kalamazoo College, a professor there, encouraged me to keep painting.

And then with my children, I tried to encourage that, and so my daughter, Malena Cadiz, she’s a beautiful singer.

You know, she has her own music.

She writes her music and then my son, Michael Cadiz, is a musician, classical guitarist, and he builds classical guitarist.

So I knew I had to really hand that down.

it’s an important part of me, that life means so much more to me because of the arts.

But I just have felt like I had to keep pushing myself over the years, because I think some artists are innately born artistic in the arts, and I felt like I really had to work for mine.

All right, so let’s talk about your art and your puzzles.

You mentioned the mixed medium.

What’s your niche?

I think there’s two different ways I paint.

There’s one where it’s just very loose and expressive.

and then there’s also a very more controlled painting that has lots of layers and lots of color.

So I like to start out with a simple sketch, and then I like to put in some washes, sometimes watercolor washes, sometimes acrylic washes.

And then I do glazes on top of that, and then I may add tissue paper to certain areas, and then I paint over that.

So I like a lot of texture I like to have the color shine through, like through and a cloud in the sky when the sun shines through, gives a glow.

And I love going deep with the layers and really like almost like nurturing the pain painting into existence.

You got that new hair cut You look like Princess Di, I’ll meet you at the mall The Johnny’s restaurant side You said you’ making changes You wave your hand a watercor wave We disappear like sand So, first of all, I sketch it on here, and then I do a thin coat of paint to get some idea of the colors that I want.

Once everything’s dried, and I have kind of all my layers in there, I do some glazes, and I choose different colors.

So I put this matte medium glaze in, which really thins out paint.

And then I put a touch of the color that I want to glaze with.

This is in Indian yellow hue.

And I learned about this glazing technique from an artist in Seattle, who I really like.

His name is Don Tiller.

This is one techninique I learned from him.

So then, when everything’s dry, I’ll check it, and I coat over it.

And it completely changes the color of the painting, which is a little disturbing at first, because I kind of fell in love with those colors.

So that’s something I’ve learned long ago that I get attached to certain to the painting at certain steps, and I don’t want to do the next step, but I have to.

stay true to the hopes of the finished product.

So when I first started this painting, what I wanted to create was something just very peaceful, koy going down, just kind of a little babbling brook.

And so the koy fish are kind of like little dancers to me.

They have their tails are like flowing dresses.

People love the koi fish.

I think it’s because there’s so many stories about koi fish and some people believe that koi fish are reincarnated Japanese warriors.

There’s lots of stories, but that’s one I kind of like, because they’re supposed to be reincarnated Japanese warriors, but they’re peaceful.

I have traditionally been a super large painter, I’ve painted murals, and a lot of my prints are from, you know, five foot by three foot paintings or five by five paintings.

So this is actually small for me, but I have been doing smaller lately because it’s hard to store and cart around.

Large paintings.

So I was just about to mix another color here to put in some more of the waves.

So I’m using kind of a palette of colors here that has a blue and a naples yellow, and once it’s glazed, this will have more of a green color.

to it.

So this may even just look a little gray right now on there.

that’s the advantage of glazing.

When you glaze over colors, it gives you colors you didn’t originally have.. Sometimes I have the palette all worked out for myself or sometimes I I, you know, do the drawing first, and then I I look at the painting and ask the painting, what colors do you want to be?

That seems kind of silly, but it actually, you know, once you have you have an idea first, then you sketch it.

and it starts to be a relationship that you have a conversation with.

For me, anyway, I don’t know, I can’t speak for others, but it starts to be it’s an internal idea, and then you externalize it, and then it speaks.

It helps.

As you look at your pictures, I’m going to start basically with this shot, which has a story behind it.

Tell us a little about this.

This was a very quick painting, and actually, I had prepared this canvas as a five by three foot canvas, and I prepared it for I was going to do kind of a piece scene.

And it had a lot of purples and pinks, and and then that day, I happened to be driving in Seattle, and there was a young man.

I just saw him for a second out of the corner of my eye, and he was slumped over in his wheelchair, and it was just just struck me as so painful.

So when I came home, I covered that canvas up with black and just did a very quick rendering of him.

And then later that painting was purchased by a man who’s part of fair start in Seattle, which helps homeless in Seattle.

Tell me about this.

This was a painting called The Face, and this is just a print of it.

It’s because it’s’s 6 and a half feet tall It was featured in Architectural Digest.

It was a big piece, and it took me a long time to do it, and to feel satisfied with it.

But it does have have a lot of feeling in it for me.

You know, it’s not exactly a self portrait, but there’s definitely some of my journey there in that face.

What’s the significance of the shall we say lamps?

Yes, I call them serenity lamps.

And because people love the coy, I wanted to print them on rice paper and somehow make lights with them, So I started a little side business with the lamps.

And then there’s the one lamp that I’m really pleased with.

Jamie Lee Curtis started a company called My Hand In Yours.

And the great thing about it is it’s all 100% gets contributed to the Childers’s Hospital in L.A.

So not only did she want to help children in the hospital, but she wanted to help artists.

So she has artists and craftsmen who make the products that she sells.

And she liked your product.

She did.

That was really, really, really exciting.

What is it about this culture of Kalamazoo that is, A brought you back here, or B, that allows you to do what you do so well?

Well, I think there’s a high interest in art in Kalamazoo, and I always felt that I still feel that.

It really pays attention to a lot of needs of our overall culture.

It just has a lot of little pockets of really incredible things that Kzoo does and I just admire that Sharmane Flanders.

I had to take notes on you because you’re so popular and you do so much.

Congratulations on your success.

Thank you.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist Ever since I was real little.

I was at my grandparents’ house a long time ago when I was like six, maybe.

My grandfather, he let me paint the bathroom door yellow with him and it was really perfect personal to me, and ever since then, I just love to paint and make art.

Cool.

Well, I hope today’s bathroom door is yellow.

In your house, there you are.

What kind of artist are you?

I’ll go deep.

I’m a mixed media.

artist.

I like to incorporate a lot of 3D elements in my 2D work to really push the boundaries of two dimensional artwork.

And these are all displayed here at City Hall of Portage.

Why did that and how did that come to be?

I saw there was a competition, and I thought, " maybe I’ll apply.

It’s for Black History Month to exhibit here.

And you won.

Yep, and I won.

Another medium, is there a sculpture here on the grounds?

Yes, there is one sculpture.

They had us make a self portrait, and I didn’t want it to be very detailed and, like, me so I kept it very smoother features, and I wanted it to showcase my personal growth, having the flowers that are coming out of the top represent growing internally, and then, you know, the flowers will bloom at the end.

Another little piece of of that, I have, like, a flower crown around the top of it, which kind of blends in along with it, and that’s extremely personal to me, because back in high school, I used to wear flowers crowns every single day.

I had almost 200 flower crowns.

There’d be individuals that would, you know, make fun of me for it, but I used that as a way to be more confident and not listen to what they say and keep wearing them.

And that helped me build my confidence.

And their art is not on the wall.

Yeah.

There was education involved in this.

Mm hmm.

Yes, talk about it.

I started out at KVCC to get my associate’s degree, and then I went to Western to get my bachelor’s degree in arts.

What is your current job?

I’m an art instructorctor at MRC Artworks, so I teach art to adults with disabilities.

It’s a skill building program, so it’s focused on building their skills so they can have different jobs.

What’s the experience like for you?

I mean, you’re helping others.

It makes me happy, especially with my job right now at a MRC Artworks, seeing the individuals grow not only with their art, but grow their skills so they can get a different job later on.

Art for all.

Working with kids, working with those with challenges, often called art therapy.

What drives you to do that and talk about touching these lives?

When I first started college, I initially wanted to go into our education because I love kids.

And then I learned about art therapy while I was in college, which drove me to change my major, and I really enjoy art therapy because you’re using art to help people through their hard times, and you can go in many different paths with that, you can work at a hospital with people have chronic illnesses, or you can work at, like, a rehab center, a lot of different places.

All right, let’s talk about what else you’re talented at, for lack of a better terms.

Let’s talk about vision.

Vision I created while I was studying at Western, I completely built the frame for it.

It’s all wood.

Yeah, it it was a little out of my comfort zone, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

The main point of this painting is to kind of show an artist during their process and like this vision.

What’s your process?

Do you sketch that out?

Do you go with the flow, rock and roll music in the background?

How do you make it work?

Back at Western, you know, instructors tell you that you should you know, sketch out a bunch of different sketches and really plan it out, but part of my artistic process, I usually put on some music, a playlist, that usually goes into the painting, and I kind of mostly go with the flow.

I get inspired by something, and I start creating.

This, an example of your good work still in the works?

Yes, I would consider it three dimensional.

At first glance, it looks 2D, but when you look closer, you can see the three dimensionality of the flowers.

I used molding paste which is almost like painting with frosting.

Just don’t eat the paint.

Yes., please don’t.

Are you interested in the face?

I see a theme.

Yes, I I started out by doing realism and focusing on faces to really master that skill.

I really chose to do faces most of the time because f faces can tell a lot about a person, and you can kind of see and feel their story.

So I use that as my main subject matter and a lot of my paintings, and then I expand upon that further recently by touching on more surrealism work, but still incorporating the face.

And then, behind me.. Who’s she?

That is Willow Smith.

I created that one on a watercolor canvas, and I use charcoal and India Ink.

Describe a praying person.

It has a few different meanings.

I don’t like to put a specific meaning on a lot of my paintings.

I want it to be open to the viewer, to connect with it personally.

You can interpret the hands as maybe a past loved one that’s like always looking over you even though you can’t see them, they’re still there.

Or you could, you could take it many different ways.

You mentioned grandparents.

Was there a great grandmother in your life that was influential?

Yes, my great grandma, we call her Grammy.

She’s 92 years old, I love her so deeply.

For her 91st birthday, I started out with a poem that I made to kind of showcase everything that she’s done and what I’m, you know, proud of her for.

And then I created a bunch of like a series of different small, like paintings and drawings that are like small clips of those memories.

And what was that like in your soul to do that?

It was really, like, really personal and really, it made me really happy and emotional, creating it, and especially when I gave it to her.

It was a surprise surprise.

So I kind of surprised her with it, and she was really happy about it.

What drives you to do the best you can?

What drives me is making my family proud and making an impact on others as well.

Like, all my art everything that I do is to leave an impact on someone.

That’s why, like, when I go to different art events, even, like, art hop, where it’s free and, you know, you don’t always make money, but it’s about having conversations with people.

And then hearing people really connect to my paintings is what makes me want to paint more.

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